The Country Intelligence Report
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The Country Intelligence Report
A Continued Conversation about Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) with Dr. Susan Yoshihara
What drives a US Navy helicopter pilot to champion women's roles in global peacebuilding? Join us as we explore the inspiring journey of Dr. Susan Yoshihara, founder and president of the American Council on Women, Peace, and Security (ACWPS). With 20 years of active-duty service, including combat logistics and humanitarian missions, Dr. Yoshihara transitioned to international advocacy, advising the Defense Department and UN diplomats. She shares the foundational principles of ACWPS, emphasizing the vital role of women in peace efforts and the importance of assembling dedicated teams for impactful results.
In this episode, Dr. Yoshihara highlights the power of strategic partnerships, particularly the collaboration with CountryIntel, and the importance of cultural sensitivity in international collaborations. She discusses the unique challenges of recruiting reliable talent for global initiatives and how small businesses can contribute to significant Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) projects. Tune in to gain valuable insights into advancing gender equality, capturing lessons learned, and creating career paths for women in peace and security.
- Hosted by: Terrell Cummings & Devon Florczak
- www.countryintel.com
Hello and welcome to the Country Intelligence Report. We are your hosts, Devin Floresac and Terrell Cummings.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody. This is Terrell Cummings, along with Devin Floresac, back on the Country Intelligence Report. Today we have a special guest we've had around previously, dr Suzy Yoshihara. She's the founder and president of the American Council on Women, peace and Security, a Washington City-based nonprofit organization advancing peace and security for women, their families and communities. Her team's advised the DOD since 2020, including the US Northern Command and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and Defense Security Cooperation University. Before founding the American Council on Peace and Security, dr Yoshihara was executive director at a nonprofit in New York where she advised UN diplomats on international social policy. She also served for 20 years as an active duty US Navy helicopter pilot. She is a Naval Academy graduate, former faculty at the Naval War College, and she led combat logistics missions in the Gulf War, humanitarian assistance missions in Africa, asia, the Pacific Islands. And she's a wife, a mother, the author of two books and has another one forthcoming. Dr Yoshihara, thank you for coming on to our podcast. We appreciate your time.
Speaker 3:Terrell Devin, it is great to be back. Thanks for inviting me back. I love to do the podcast here at Country Intel. You guys have a great team.
Speaker 2:We definitely appreciate you taking the time. Thank you very much. Obviously you had quite the past there and quite the present, probably quite the future as well, and we'd love to be able to pick your brain on a few things and kind of see kind of your thought processes on where you are and where you're going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, to all of those who are thinking of starting a small business or who founded a small business, you are not crazy. I decided five years ago, after a full career in the Navy and then another career doing research and education up at the UN, that there was another need out there and the way to fill it was starting a small business. In this case I started a nonprofit. This was about five years ago and we really founded it because we identified a need. We were women leaders in Washington DC. We were asked to comment on policy and to help to write strategy for women, peace and security. Women, peace and security. If you didn't listen to our previous podcast on Country Intel, that is an international initiative that started at the UN Security Council in 2000 to get more women to the peace table to build better, stronger, longer lasting peace deals, and then Congress passed a law making it the law of the land and that was to really help US government agencies get more women involved, get more wisdom at the table, and my organization was asked to help inform the law and some of the strategy. So we found that in order to do the work we had to do, we had to form a small business.
Speaker 3:We decided to form a nonprofit because we're sort of a hybrid. We're not just doing research and policy, we're also doing on the ground work. We all kind of have a heart for service. I'm former military. We have folks who do international law, religious freedom, who've done missionary work all over the world, and so we wanted to be able to say that we were actually working with people on the ground as well as informing policy. So that's how we were founded. We were founding in Washington DC. We started in 2020 and almost immediately were asked to work on a government contract, and that's with Country Intel.
Speaker 2:So I guess in general we're all House, Council service members or the broader community, and what makes us so successful in your opinion?
Speaker 3:I think our success is two things it is our policy expertise, our experience and policy expertise. We're all pretty seasoned experts in the field, or there are 10 of us now at the council. We're not a membership organization, we're more of a think tank, and the others is we really have a heart for service. I mean, we are. We are servant leaders and that means that we really we know if we are not the right fit for a particular grant or a particular contract and we can help identify talent, that is. And if we are the right fit, we will really go the distance and go that extra mile to make sure that we deliver to the client. And I think that is the key to our success finding that talent and then making sure we deliver a superior product every time.
Speaker 1:Is Women, peace and Security something you've always been passionate about, going back to your days in the Navy and thank you again for your service and is this something that you know? You've always been passionate and trying to push forward. You know you're back 10, 20 years ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know I thank you for saying 10 or 20. That's very kind of you, but no, it's been even much longer than that. I actually joined the Navy at 17 and have been doing this. I think anyone who's been in the military is a leader. Probably within the first few weeks you have to turn around and start leading. And so leadership and the ability to lead teams and I realized you know I didn't set out to start a small business, but you realize that leading teams is what you do and this is true in other services as well, not just the military and then you bring that to bear in an organization.
Speaker 3:And so in American Council we have teams who are working on the ground, partnering. In Uganda we have the team that worked on curriculum development with country intel. We also did strategy development at country intel, helping to incubate WPS within the DOD. We did a lot of curriculum development and teaching. So I had to identify folks who maybe had a PhD, had some teaching background, but who also had the expertise in the area, not just the military, but we had a PhD historian on that team, if you recall, we also had someone who was a counterterrorism expert and also an international lawyer. So building the right team kind of just comes naturally for someone in the military.
Speaker 3:But, yes, I'm passionate about helping women and girls. I'm being so grateful, having gotten off the ship in many, many parts of the world where women and girls don't enjoy the same privileges and opportunities that I enjoy in this country. I have become passionate about helping women, but not helping them in a way that we're coming to the rescue, no, but rather really helping them identify ways that they can become leaders in their own contexts, right. So that's, I think, the difference between an American foreign policy that goes out to rescue and the American foreign policy that goes out to just advise and empower. That's really our niche at American Council. We have that perspective. We have that solidarity with the customer and also with the client who's trying to help them.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, and as far as so, you mentioned your experience and how building a team is important. That's sort of what you learn in the Navy and it's something that you're sort of bringing to the American Council and looking forward with Women in Peace and Security. I think it's something that's definitely coming to the forefront now. Maybe you can speak on this more, but as far as the contracts that we go after, I feel like Women in Peace and Security is definitely an initiative that's being brought forward in a lot more government departments. Is that something that you've seen, or what are you seeing right now?
Speaker 3:It is, I think, since the law was passed in 2017, and then the strategy and the policies from the four agencies Defense Department, state Department, usaid and Department of Homeland Security. So now you have four agencies that are required by law to implement this. And you know we're several years in now and they're realizing that they need to must hire. So you know, partnering has been a godsend for us. As a nonprofit, we aren't the prime in these contracts. We're subcontracted now to US Northern Command with another partner.
Speaker 3:I think that in the future, we probably will also branch out and have an LLC to become primes, but I think for us it's absolutely the right fit to partner, especially in our sort of incubation phase. It's been wonderful to get that past performance as a sub, and these agencies are hiring more and more. I am constantly called to advise on talent because there are so few of us in Women, Peace and Security. We are spent so thin now, and it really it's down to the agency to compete to identify the right prime. I will tell you, though, that there are a lot of large government contractors who say that they do women, peace and security, but what they do is they hire someone and then they train them up. I don't know how you can get a superior product if you're putting someone on a one year contract who has to be trained up to do something that's so niche, and that's the reason why I think small and medium-sized businesses are so important.
Speaker 3:Looking around and taking the time to find the right small business or medium-sized enterprise that has that expertise in-house and we generally do help each other, don't we? Yeah when we go out. If we're not the right fit, we do go out and help find talent. Uh, sometimes there's not a big return on investment, but we, those relationships, always come back sometime in the future.
Speaker 2:Um, especially if you build that trust so that can kind of lead us to. I know you kind of touched on a little bit ago talking about like the partnership with country intel, kind of what you're doing. You know what what you're doing now. You know as far as how we're partnering together and how you felt like that was the right partnership for your organization.
Speaker 3:So immediately with Country Intel. Let me back up a bit. I talked to another woman-owned small business founder. So founding a business, as you know, if you're the founder, so founding a business, as you know, if you're the founder, you are all in. I mean, you're investing time, talent and treasure and you're also an entrepreneur. One of the best books I read and it was recommended by your boss was the E-Myth. You know, being an entrepreneur just doesn't cut it. You don't want to be working in your business, you want to be working on your business, right? So as a small business owner, you're doing both for years and I talked to one who said she never did a sub. She put in for prime and automatically she's been priming ever since and that's because she had really bad relationships with primes and you can be treated really badly as a sub.
Speaker 3:I was so fortunate that my first experience was with Country Intel, because the team at Country Intel has a certain spirit, a certain personality and you can just tell it's all about the teamwork and I knew that coming on and bringing a team on and bringing friends and, you know, putting my own reputation on the line to bring a team in to help was going to pay off and it did. It's just an extraordinary organization. So when I went and I went after our first subcontract with another organization I really looked at what are their values? How have they treated other subs. If you can find out, that's really important, if you can talk to other subs who've worked with them, what's their reputation as a prime, and you need to know if your values are a good fit. Talk to some of the folks who are on the team. Are they happy there? So I do recommend doing that.
Speaker 3:And look at the duration. Is it a one, two, three other option years? I mean, is this investment going to pay off? Is it going to be worth it? And in the case of this prime that we're working with now, they were looking for contacts and an in at an agency they'd never worked for and I provided that and I would like to be a partner with them because they're a much, much larger firm. So it was mutually beneficial and I think that mutual benefit is really important. When you're looking at partnering. You have to sort of need each other in order to make it a good partnership and then you know, make sure you can be a mentor.
Speaker 2:How do you kind of determine if the partnership is beneficial for both parties? Like, obviously you're able to give?
Speaker 3:a little bit.
Speaker 2:Are you looking to see how much they're willing to give or whatever, Like? There's always kind of a give-take as far as that? Obviously, you want both sides to benefit from it. But how do you determine? If it's okay, this is good enough for us, let's go ahead and push forward.
Speaker 3:Um, you know when you're writing a contract. You know if you have a hot contract that you're writing. That is around the clock thing. It's short fused. You're going to know pretty quick if you like the personalities, if you're going to get along with the team, what kind of infrastructure they have and if you have the right talent to bear. The second thing I learned is about recruitment. We're good at recruiting talent. We are very well networked in our space. It's a very small space, so I also wanted to bring on good, reliable consultants to be on our team and that has really paid off for us on this contract. So I sort of pride ourselves in being able to identify and bring on talent to talent that's going to stay. I can't say, you know and and honestly, bad experiences uh, bringing on talent that didn't work out. I've only had one experience with that so far and that's um been a great uh learning experience, but, um, but it's just something that you plow into uh finding great talent for the next one.
Speaker 1:How do you think, like even us, like country Intel is a small business, but as far as you know other small businesses and companies under the DOD, you know. How do you think there are there any better ways that we could align? You know what we're trying to do with the lines, or align ourselves with what WPS is trying to achieve. You know, as far as you know, as far as you know, bettering women in the workforce and making sure that you know we're promoting women being safe abroad and also making sure that you know there are career paths available that support. You know women better. You know within the industry as well.
Speaker 3:So I would say that's a great question. Look around for it in your portfolio. They're out there, maybe. Add Women, peace and Security to your business development. Just open your aperture a little bit. If you're in an organization you've been working with USAID or state or civilian business for many years, see if there is an opportunity for Women, peace and Security and then come to one of us who is an expert in that and see if you can find talent to fill that niche and partner with us. I think that's the best way to do it.
Speaker 3:We are working on two projects that have never been done before. Right now we are working with a combatant command that is working directly with another partner nation, helping them build a sexual assault prevention and response program for their military. I mean, this is a male dominated, very patriarchal military, but there was a spark of interest to recruit women because they need that kind of talent. Like a business, they need that talent going forward. I mean, look at the demographics in most countries that are really shrinking. They identified a need, but they knew that a lot of women don't stay because of the way they're treated and they needed a program built. So we went out and found the talent, someone who's done it before in the military, and then added that. So the new piece of that was working with a partner nation and understanding how security cooperation works. Everything has to be done through an offer letter, everything has to be done through a joint staff on a combatant command, so that was the new piece of it. In this case, I found a military veteran, a veteran who'd served in Iraq and Afghanistan, someone who had built these programs before, someone who had worked abroad and had the personality to be very culturally sensitive in another country, and that is really paying off. I have to say this was a great person, great fit. So for other companies out there who see these opportunities and you want to add protection of women and girls and their empowerment, please consider looking at women, peace and security as a framework, because I think it's something that's around to stay. Support for this.
Speaker 3:Knocking on wood here, because these are tricky times politically and I'll give you an example when we came to Country Intel, we built a curriculum, designed a curriculum, put it online, taught it virtually, because it was during COVID and our first class was a week before an administration change and the administration had very different views on women and women's empowerment right. So it's a huge shift. So literally as soon as we're teaching, we had a big policy change. Now this is a risk when you're working with the administrations, because policy changes and then we had to make sure our team could work with a new policy. That was tricky.
Speaker 3:You had to have people who were smart enough and, I think, mature enough to work with different political perspectives and that's a talent that I think you get working in government for a long time. I know country intel has that talent. But American Council because we are senior women leaders who've worked around the, you know DC for a long time. We understand that. But you never waver on um understanding what the law says, what the strategy says, but you have to accommodate new political perspectives. So I think you know if you're a, if you're a business that's out there that's willing to wade into this um, there are. There are small, medium-sized businesses that can help you do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would you sort of recommend then for companies like us that are small or medium-sized, that want to get into Women, Peace and Security and carry forward some of this work? Would you sort of emphasize them going to, maybe, contracts that they currently have of clients and say like hey, this WNB Security Act was passed in 2017. And this is something that we should really introduce at our agency? Or should they reach out to us at Country Intel or the American Council and say you know, I'd really love to do some of this work? What would you sort of recommend there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say definitely reach out to us at american council, definitely reach out to country intel because, uh, country intel is much larger. We're a, we're a small think tank, um, and we can help identify that talent and bring those teams together. Country until has the past performance. You understand it. Um, I like country until because folks on the team were willing to come in and help.
Speaker 3:For example, we were creating tabletop exercises and really using a lot of the skills and depth that Country Intel has in data management, in building teams, in curriculum development and, of course, the expertise in this one agency, penn Security Corporation University. Those things really come to bear as well as sort of the depth of knowledge in the niche which is women, peace and security. It could have been cyber, it could have been climate, it could have been any other sort of niche. But you also have to bring to bear some of these other things to build a good team. So, yes, I would say definitely reach out, and most folks who have past performance will put it on their website. But again, I would say, be choosy. Not all WPS experts are the same, but it's a great place to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Do you have any good success stories as far as bringing in WPS initiatives to certain government agencies and anything that we can sort of take away from those success stories?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So let me start with bringing it to the latest prime that we're working with. They had never done WPS per se, very interested in getting that, and I think the one thing that we did for them was introduce them to our network. We found the right person for the job, who then opened up their network and now they I think after just one year in the field are going to be expanding and making this sort of a cornerstone of their work. So finding the right person, I think, is that is that fit.
Speaker 3:I don't discount women owned small businesses. You know, as a as a woman owned small business, I think that there is a certain perspective. We're trying to recruit a lot more men in this field because, again, working with a partner nation that is culturally sensitive to the issue of empowering women and getting women in the military, this is sort of a foreign concept. Sometimes. I think you want to find men who are in the field as well. The way we do that at American Council is we bring them along as interns first and foremost. So we've got men in college. We hire a lot of interns from Virginia Tech, young men who really want to get into this space, who are doing very technical things, but they're interested in it. This is a way for them to dip their toe in the water. The other thing we pride ourselves in is our interns get to go to the White House, like in their first week. They get to go to meetings with the National Security Council or they go to Capitol Hill and they can sit in on meetings at the Senate if we're doing a briefing, for example. So it's a fun place to intern, get your feet wet, be a rapporteur and you're adding value, and then you get back to school and you've got a product that you can share. And that would, I think, be the same if you're a company interested in doing this work. You could partner and get a year doing really in-depth work and then you'd have that member on your team who's exposed to these networks and be able to provide that to your team as well.
Speaker 3:In our next five-year plan, I think some of the things we've been encouraged to look at not just the LLC but the FFRDC, that federally funded research center that can be pre-vetted to do this kind of research that we do. You know, for us we're researchers. I have a book coming out and that's based on that strong network of folks who are doing this work in the field. They're not WPS experts per se, but they've been in this space and then by working on them with with research, they're able to write a book chapter. They're able to use that in their own organization, whether it's a military organization or a think tank or a university. My value add is that I'm an editor. I've been editing books and writing books and peer-reviewed articles. So I help them with their thinking, clarify their thinking, you know, sort of bring them along and that intellectual enterprise. Then they plow right back into their company or their faculty so that book will be coming out next year. And then we're moving on to the next research project, the project I'm working on now with this company.
Speaker 3:We're doing again a first ever research looking at military operations in domestic settings. So we're looking at, for example, how the National Guard is helping indigenous communities in Alaska move, you know, 10 miles up river because of climate change. That hasn't been done before. You know, we haven't produced research on that. We're looking at human operations and gender considerations in Operation Asylum Seeker. So these are the asylum seekers who are coming over the border ending up in New York City. And is there a gender consideration. There Are we helping to protect women and girls. So that's another exciting research project. I mean, these are things that people are volunteering to work on, but we're going to make sure that those lessons are captured for the next generation. We're also doing a research project on Operation Ali's Welcome.
Speaker 3:That was when Kabul fell and 78,000 Afghans came to the United States. They ended up in eight safe havens here on military bases. Well, you have extraordinary stories. You had people in the 1st Armored Division, for example, down at Fort Bliss, who had to create a refugee camp and house 11,000 refugees and educate and keep them safe and help women and girls there too, and do that all in four months. And then those Afghans went out into the community. So later on in a couple hours I'll be talking to some of those Afghans who not only were part of that and now are becoming American citizens, but they also helped build a school.
Speaker 3:So what were the considerations there? How do we capture those lessons right? If you look at the future of the United States, you're going to see more of this, not less of it. You're going to see more displacement, more emergencies, but where, where are the considerations for women and girls and families. You know how do you bring our expertise at the American Council to bear on those kinds of emergencies? Well, oddly enough, it's in a government contract. You know, if it wasn't for a government contract, with the GOD those kinds of lessons learned wouldn't be captured for Americans in the future or future Americans in the future. And we're trying to do that by empowering this government agency and this contractor to create that kind of value.
Speaker 3:That's really our sweet spot right to create that kind of value. That's really our sweet spot right. You know that's where contracts are exciting. You're building something that that future you know work can build on. And if we deliver a superior product you know in this case it's going to be briefings and spinoff to you know papers and things like that but if you can build a superior product and superior team now on this contract, you're actually building value for the next right, for the next contract or to build that in-house capability and hand that off to the client. So you know it's exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I love this work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:As you can see, we're really enthusiastic about this work and we're so grateful. I'm grateful to Country Intel that really showed us the ropes on how to do government contracting right. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to bring this kind of value yeah, I feel like there's hats off to you. You guys have hats on, you both have both hats on. I don't. I have my son hat behind me because I'm coming to you live from san diego right now, but uh, my hats are off to country waiting into to wps in order to make this kind of synergy happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we appreciate that and I feel like now there's such a stigma around the Department of Defense and the type of money that's being spent in defense, and the stigma is that, you know, the US might be a warmongering country, as some of my folks in my generation might say, some of my folks in my generation might say, but projects like WPS, I think, is a bright spot in the DoD. It's something that should definitely be praised as being a good project that's actually coming out of the DoD. That's I wouldn't say violent, but it's something that should definitely be praised.
Speaker 3:No, devin, I think you're right, and I think during the 20-year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, devin, I think you're right, and I think during the 20 year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know government contractors there are just so many and they're just big construction projects and I think contracting sort of got black eye as well. But I will tell you something that came out of all that counterinsurgency the human domain, the human dimension, and a look at things like protection issues. That also came out of counterinsurgency. That also was something that contractors trained to. Again, I think it's going to be a lost art. As we now shift gears to great power, competition and we're turning our gaze more to preparing for China and Russia.
Speaker 3:I think that a lot of the lessons in the military, the doctrine and the training that was really focused on the human domain, will be lost.
Speaker 3:And I think that's why, right now, we are in that golden moment where we need to capture those lessons.
Speaker 3:So for your generation, we are now I know that we, american Council, we are on a contract capturing those lessons for the next generation so that we can plow them into American communities In the case of Alaska, that's, you know, native communities that need to be moved. That's a partnership with military that helping to build houses. You know, in the case of the New York National Guard, that's folks who are helping Department of Homeless Services with these Americans you know, future Americans or whatever. However you feel about how these folks are coming into the country and it's very divisive. They're here and we want to make sure we're protecting women and girls there and for crises, conflict riots, you know, helping to keep American communities safe by plowing the lessons that we learned overseas in the human domain and bringing that to bear in a partnership for Americans. I think that is a good news story. But again, those lessons are going to be lost pretty soon if we don't capture them, and organizations like yours and mine can go a long way capturing those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 3:So I hope we get the opportunity to do that in the future.
Speaker 2:So so interesting, so so much to learn from me and kind of your journey and the progress you've made and where you're looking to go and everything like that. And you know, unfortunately we have to cut this a little short of what we want to, but you know maybe we can have you back on for a future episode and kind of you know, learn kind of where you're going from there and you know kind of what the story is, how the book, how the book you know went and everything like that, and kind of have a little follow up with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that'd be great. Sure, we can come back and maybe do an episode on the book and the reception of that. That'd be wonderful. I really appreciate talking to you guys and the reception of that. That'd be wonderful. I really appreciate talking to you guys. I have learned so much working with Country Intel. Again, for those of you who are thinking of starting a small business, or you have one or you're working for one, there's a lot of goodness, a lot of great work that we can do, and so I hope that this has been a little encouraging, had some good news stories. It is an investment of ourselves, but I think it's a great way that we pass on that legacy of the spirit of small business and building a strong America for our children and for the next generation. So it's been a great opportunity to talk about it and look forward to talking to you guys again.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, and everybody else else.
Speaker 1:we'll see you next time thank you for listening to the country intelligence report. Please like and subscribe to stay up with the latest developments to the show. For more information about the country intelligence group, please visit our website at wwwcountryintelcom. We can also be found on multiple social media platforms with the username at countryintel.
